There are a large number of network communications protocols that can be used to provide a way for electronic devices, such as computers, personal digital assistants, electronic calculators, telemetry devices, and so forth, to exchange information and data. The capabilities of the available network communications protocols can vary widely, ranging from simple and small to large and complex.
The simple and small network communications protocols typically trade-off a rich feature set and fault tolerance for the ability to operate on electronic devices with limited processing capability and memory capacity. Furthermore, the simple and small network communications protocols usually offer good performance due to smaller overhead. The large and complex network communications protocols usually require electronic devices with some minimum level of processing capacity and memory. However, in return, the large and complex network communications protocols will usually provide a wide variety of message routing options and the ability to tolerate certain types of faults.
While the large and complex network communications protocols offer a rich feature set, along with fault tolerance, their computation and memory requirements may preclude their use in applications wherein the electronic devices do not meet the requirements. However, there are situations wherein these electronic devices require the ability to route messages in several different ways as well as the ability to tolerate certain types of faults.
One approach that can be used to meet the communications requirement of the electronic devices would be to add additional capability to an existing network communications protocol, wherein the existing network communications protocol provided some but not all of the needed functionality and had computation and memory requirements that could be met by the electronic devices. This approach can have the advantage of making use of an existing and well-tested network communications protocol that may have a large set of development tools.
One disadvantage of the prior art is even if the existing network communications protocol has computation and memory requirements that can be met by the electronic devices, there may not be any assurance that the electronic devices will be able to meet the computation and memory requirements of the modified network communications protocol.
A second disadvantage of the prior art is that if too many modifications are made to the existing network communications protocol, the amount of development may be similar to the development required to create a network communications protocol from scratch and will not adhere to the standards set by the protocol. Hence tools that are built for that protocol may no longer work.